Television programs, broadcast and streaming, and live and time-shifted, may emit audio signal that may be analyzed to identify the programs. For example, an audio meter connected to a television may record snippets of audio from a television program. The audio snippets may be processed and compared to an audio database. The audio database contains audio references derived from the same programs. A match that occurs between the processed audio snippets and the audio references then may be used to identify the television program or the channel on which the television program was played. However, the audio database may contain many millions of audio references. Television programs may be broadcast over hundreds of channels, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This mass of data has historically required extensive computing resources to identify a particular program or channel. This situation is made worse when time shifted television and streaming television are considered.